"They abandoned us! They abandoned us, you know?"
In the room of another hotel, Little Zhou walked around, speaking with a tone of discontent, like an abandoned wife.
"Oh." Li Liang lay in bed lazily, looking indifferent about anything at all.
Bi Wanhui spoke not a word. The shock of a friend dying before her eyes was pretty big for her.
Little Zhou snarled, "Can you guys respond?"
"Haven't I already?" said Li Liang. "I think it's very good. We don't have to go out there and risk our lives, and we will get through the mission safely."
"If we don't participate, we won't get any reward," said Little Zhou. "Have you forgotten?"
"I don't care." Bi Wanhui said one sentence and then grew silent again.
Li Liang waved a hand. "Come on, did you really think you're playing a video game? People die in missions."
"Didn't that monk say he'll protect us?" retorted Little Zhou.
Li Liang chuckled. "He said so, and you just believed him?"
"He's very good at fighting, he could clearly have brought us on the mission with them." Little Zhou emphasized it again. "But they saw us as a burden and abandoned us!"
It was already night, and Tang Luo and the other two had yet to return.
Earlier in the morning, they had only left them some money. The party at the hotel didn't even know the trio's whereabouts. But they had actually left behind a copy of the credentials.
Li Liang and Bi Wanhui only wanted to keep themselves alive and away from dangerous tasks. They were pretty pleased by this situation, but Little Zhou was different. He was too scared to participate but unwilling to stay back.
After being ignored and "abandoned" by Tang Luo's group, the more he thought about it, the angrier he was.
"F*ck bringing us."
Li Liang said, "Did you think everyone in the world is your mother and has to spoil you? It's already not bad that he gave us money and arranged for us to stay here. Though the monk stabbed me before, to be fair, he's a good guy."
An unemployed youth, who had encountered difficulties, understood the cruel ways of the society more or less.
"Are the high school students right now all so self-centered?"
Li Liang completely forgot that he had also been in that stage once, and started to mock him.
Actually, everyone's circumstances were similar. The only difference was that some could quickly adjust their state of mind, while others would lose their balance.
Taunted by Li Liang, Little Zhou, whose mood was bad in the first place, roared, "Shut up!"
"Oh, so you're trying to fight, huh?"
"F*ck… you!"
Little Zhou's reaction was far more violent than Li Liang had expected.
'Someone actually made such a suggestion? I shall satisfy him, then.'
Li Liang saw the energetic teenage curse loudly before rushing towards him. The two started fighting intensely on the bed.
Then, Li Liang tragically realized that he actually couldn't beat him!
As a university student that had spent four years eating and sleeping, Li Liang was really not too good in terms of physical fitness. It was far from his peak period during high school. Not to mention, he had yet to recover from his body being hollowed out.
Little Zhou did the daily running exercise mandated by the school, and he was pretty fond of sports such as basketball. After all, it was one of the few recognized forms of entertainment for a boarding student. Also, he had quite some strength.
His fist went right towards Li Liang's face, bashing his nose, from which a long stream of blood gushed out.
"Crazy!" Bi Wanhui scolded, before opening the room door and walking out without hesitation.
Tang Luo had generously booked three rooms for them, but out of habit and fear, they had stayed together.
Right now, the two ended up fighting. Bi Wanhui was not in the mood to mediate their quarrel, nor did she want to stay on and watch the two men fight.
Bi Wanhui took out the key and opened the door to the room next to it. She reached for the door and was going to push it open when she heard the sound of footsteps behind her.
This hotel was clearly much worse than the one they stayed in yesterday. The floor of the corridor often squeaked when being stepped on, and footsteps would be particularly noticeable.
One side was light, the other heavy.
Upon hearing the footsteps, Bi Wanhui's body instinctively trembled as she recalled the same footsteps she had heard the previous night. Thus, she pushed the door faster.
Yet, just as Bi Wanhui pushed the door half-open and was going in, or escaping into the room, her movement stopped.
The footsteps she heard just now also stopped.
A piercingly cold breath was blown onto Bi Wanhui's neck, and she entered a trance. It was as though she was no longer in the hotel but inside a dark, cold, strange environment.
The hair on her body stood up, and her hands and feet felt numb.
Bi Wanhui stood right where she maintained the posture of pushing the door, motionless, stiff like a statue. Only the horrified expression on her face changed wildly, and her tears flowed.
She didn't know who was behind her, but the fear of impending death completely shrouded her, and it was destroying her spirit little by little.
'A blow. A blow.'
The icy cold breath on her neck became heavier. Yet the temperature of the exhaled air dropped further. Bi Wanhui even saw a layer of white frost gradually appear on the door opposite her.
She used all her strength to open her mouth, wanting to shout.
At that moment, the person behind her also started moving.
A pair of hands extended from Bi Wanhui's armpits, like a lover's embrace from the back.
If not for the dagger in the hands that "converged" in front of her.
A rusty dagger!
The blade that was not particularly sharp was pointed right at Bi Wanhui's chest. Not the position of the heart, but in the middle.
The real "embrace" began, and the arms, which stretched out from behind her, started tightening.
Right at that moment, Bi Wanhui's body suddenly shook, and her mad struggles in silence finally worked. She was like a suffocating person, suddenly breathing fresh air, as she broke free of the ropes that bound her.
Bi Wanhui regained control of her body, her mouth was wide open. She lifted a hand and rushed forward. She wanted to escape!
Suddenly, intense pain overwhelmed her as the rusty blade was plunged into Bi Wanhui's chest right in that instant.
The hands that were previously very stable started trembling madly, and her wound was expanded and torn up.
Blood, strength, and the vitality in her eyes were pulled out of her body together.
Then a string of whispering sounds came from the murderer. His hands let go and let Bi Wanhui's body smash to the ground, while he retreated into the darkness and disappeared without a trace.
Back in the room, Little Zhou and Li Liang were panting, staring at each other.
There were several bloodstains on Little Zhou's face, and the blood flowing out of his forehead covered half of his face in red, looking extremely fierce and terrible. Surprisingly, it was just a small wound, and the blood flow had been stopped.
Meanwhile, Li Liang had bruises all over his face, and both his left face and right eye were badly swollen.
He sat on the bed, and his whole body was somewhat shaking. His mouth was open, and he retched a little from time to time.
"I'm done with you bullcr*p! Tomorrow I'll be part of the mission too! You're on your own to wait for your death!"
Little Zhou wiped the blood from his eyelids and turned to leave.
When he reached the door, he froze for a moment because the door was unlocked. He only just realized that Bi Wanhui seemed to have left.
Little Zhou walked out of the room and realized that the next room's door was similarly left open. Confused, he pushed the door open to look but didn't see Bi Wanhui.
"Where is she?" Little Zhou stood by the door and looked around. "She can't have gone to the toilet again, right?"
Thinking of which, Little Zhou himself felt a need to pee, and he also needed to clean up the blood on his face. But he wouldn't choose the toilet across the corridor. Instead, he chose to go downstairs to the first floor.
There had to be someone in the hotel lobby, which wasn't very big at all. It would give him a little sense of security.
He walked downstairs with his head down. Little Zhou saw a person standing behind the counter.
Without looking up, he said, "I'm going to the toilet."
After all, it wasn't very easy to explain about the blood on his face.
Fortunately, the man behind the counter did not stop him, and let Little Zhou hurry past.
"Heh?"
After just a few steps, the light in Little Zhou's eyes suddenly dimmed, immediately brightening before dimming again.
The drastic changes in brightness left large patches of blackness in his vision.
Upon looking up, Little Zhou saw that the light above was constantly flickering, as though it was broken.
"Bad luck," he muttered. Squinting with his eyes somewhat painful from the flickering of the light, Little Zhou walked into the toilet and left the door ajar.
After a while, he was grimacing in pain in front of the dirty mirror.
The wound on his face wasn't deep, but it hurt a lot.
Before Little Zhou could hold some water in his hands to wash his face, the dim light above him also started flickering.
It constantly changed from light and dark.
"F*ck! What a shitty hotel!" Little Zhou cursed in a low voice. He hurriedly gave his face a wipe, and without cleaning properly, he pushed the door open and went out.
In his panic, his pace was flustered, he tripped himself and almost fell.
As soon as he got out, Little Zhu caught a glimpse of someone standing by the door. He was immediately startled and almost fell down. There was a creepy smile on the man's face as his hand continuously pressed on the switch on the wall.
It was the switch to the toilet light, which meant that the light in the toilet kept flickering not because it was broken but because this guy outside was playing with the switch!
"You!"
Before Little Zhou could get angry, the light in the toilet couldn't stand the ravages any more, and completely broke down, dimming down.
The smile on the man's face disappeared instantly.
It was a sudden change.
Little Zhou was startled again, suppressing his angry curses in his throat.
The man glanced at Little Zhou and then walked back to the counter with footsteps that were lighter on one foot and heavier on the other.
Next, the light overhead started flickering again.
Click… Click…
The monotonous sound of the switch sounded.
The person behind the counter just now was not the innkeeper Little Zhu had seen in the morning, but that fellow.
'He has broken one light, and now he wants to break a second?'
"What the hell!?"
Little Zhou had already sensed that something was wrong.
'Where did this creepy old guy come from? Where's the innkeeper? Where did he go?'
Little Zhu felt fearful. He wasn't going back to the hotel room anymore, but out, leaving this hotel as he recalled something.
In the morning, when Tang Luo and the others had asked the innkeeper from the hotel they stayed at the previous night about the cleaning staff, the innkeeper had said that the Old John was a crippled man!
'This slightly old man walked with one foot heavier than the other, isn't he a cripple then? Could it be that… Tang Luo and the other two didn't abandon us? Rather… they found out the real murderer, only to be killed?'
Little Zhou didn't know that Tang Luo and the others had relieved the suspicion on Old John and had gone straight after another clue.
Now Little Zhu only felt that immense fear was clenching his heart tightly like a hand. His heart beat violently in that hand, almost popping out of his throat.
All his thoughts turned into a roar, "Go!"
Little Zhu's somewhat stiff body moved, and he lifted his legs desperately and ran outside.
Click!
The snap of the switch stopped, and the constantly flickering light on top of his head turned into darkness.
There was no knowing whether it was turned off by the cripple, or broken like the light in the toilet.